19 April (Part 2) - Award winning wild life garden. Owner to be prosecuted by Bexley council
In some ways Olly Cromwell and Mrs. Rita Grootendorst are very similar sorts of people in very similar situations. Both come from the awkward squad that won’t be quelled by some bureaucrat with a clip-board or a jumped up councillor. They stand their ground. Olly, you may remember, first did so by admitting, after he had done so unobserved, to filming a council meeting. He had no idea it was not welcomed by Bexley council, after all, it was less than two weeks after the Communities Secretary said such things were part of a modern society. It pre-dated Bexley’s Constitutional rearrangements which outlawed the practice.
Mrs. G.
has an unconventional secluded garden and a fence that mysteriously
migrates across her boundary. She uses her car port as a storage area, it’s not
exactly tidy but no one is required to peer into it to check. She currently has
the builders in and things are probably a bit chaotic in there now. Bexley
council has decided to strike. They have issued a formal notice under Section
215 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990. They intend to criminalise her and her autistic husband.
Bexley’s Deputy Director (Development, Housing & Community Safety) David Bryce-Smith, the same
Bryce-Smith that
left a
resident flooded over last Christmas, has reiterated his intention to prosecute.
He has sent a six point multi-paragraph letter of which
the following is a small extract from point 1.
To help anyone wishing to look into the recent history of this case, there is
a little Index page.
You can see the untidy car port in the photo above along with the door that
shields it from prying eyes. The structure has been there for 16 years. An anonymous caller told
me that Bexley council is working on an ASBO for Mrs. Grootendorst now. The claim is that
she swore at someone. In her position, most people would.